From blood and ash

If I wasn’t sitting, I likely would’ve fallen over. I wanted to refute his claim, but I couldn’t come up with one good reason for why he’d lie about this. There was nothing to gain from doing so. I bent slightly in my chair, wondering if it was possible that I was having a heart attack.

“I’m curious, Cas. Why must we go home?” Kieran asked, and I swore his voice rose with purpose. “When we will be going farther away from where your brother is held.”

“It is the only place we can go,” he replied, those golden eyes remaining fixed on me. “Did you know that an Atlantian can only marry if both halves are standing in the soil of their land? It’s the only way for them to become whole.”

My lips parted as a hush descended over the entire room. Still reeling from the whole half-Atlantian thing, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. That he was saying…

That damn dimple appeared in his right cheek and then in his left. Casteel Da’Neer, the Prince of Atlantia, smiled fully as he lifted our joined hands and said, “We go home to marry, my Princess.”

* * * *

Also from 1001 Dark Nights and Je